Schedule too tough for Ducks?

The Sagarin ratings have Oregon playing the 37th most-difficult schedule in the nation. By comparison, the Pac-10 schedule next on that list is Cal as the 90th most challenging.

UCLA’s schedule is ranked 137th by Sagarin. Arizona’s is 197th.

Maybe the Ducks simply overscheduled in this transition season. UO coach Ernie Kent, asked about that earlier, acknowledged it’s the most difficult in his 12 years at Oregon, but didn’t see a way out.

He didn’t want to give up the Maui Invitational, the Ducks owed Utah the game in Salt Lake City, and Saint Mary’s, in Mac Court on Wednesday, was paying back the Ducks for the trip to Moraga last season.

One possible solution: beat teams that aren’t that difficult, like Oakland at home and injury-riddled San Diego, and the Ducks would have a winning record.

ONE TEST TOO MANY? One theory thrown around Saturday in Portland was that the Ducks looked like a week of final examinations leading into the Pape Jam had taken too much out of them.

Responded sophomore LeKendric Longmire: “We’re here to play basketball as well as go to school.”

Longmire tends to get right to the point of things. Kent said maybe final exams had taken a toll, though previous UO teams had come to Portland and done well in a similar situation.

Yes, and no.

The last season that Oregon had this many young players in key roles was the 2004-05 season, with the Hairston-Taylor-Leunen group.They beat Vanderbilt 76-65 at the Pape Jam to start 4-0. But that was on the Saturday before final exams, not after. A week later, after finals, the Ducks went to Chicago and were schooled by Illinois, 83-66. That might have been the result on any day, however, as that Illinois team was ranked No. 1 in the country at the time.

The Ducks also lost to Illinois at the end of finals week three years ago at the Pape Jam, but again, those Illini were ranked 11th and Oregon wasn’t playing well, in the midst of a three-game losing streak during a 6-6 nonleague performance that included losses to Portland and Portland State.

In the previous two seasons, Oregon was triumphant at the Pape Jam, coming out of a week of final exams. The Ducks beat Nebraska and Utah in those games. But two years ago, Oregon was 12-0 in nonleague games, and last year’s team was led by seniors who largely were done with their degrees, and had breezed through finals week.

Bob Clark has covered Oregon basketball over a span of the past six head coaches, from Dick Harter to Dana Altman. He’s watched some of the biggest wins for the Ducks, a couple of trips to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament and yes, also the most-lopsided loss ever recorded in McArthur Court.